# Shadows are too dark

**URL:** <https://community.cesium.com/t/shadows-are-too-dark/20653>\
**Category:** Cesium for Unreal\
**Created:** [October 3, 2022, 4:17pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/shadows-are-too-dark/20653 "2022-10-03T16:17:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![0x974](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/cesium/user_avatar/community.cesium.com/0x974/32/3476_2.png) [@0x974](https://community.cesium.com/u/0x974)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 4:17pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/shadows-are-too-dark/20653/1 "2022-10-03T16:17:50Z")

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Hello,

Do you know how to make terrain shadows less dark? Only terrain seems to be affected, not other meshes.

 ![Capture d’écran 2022-10-03 201702](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/cesium/original/3X/d/5/d5d0f7fb2a3df6c718100cc13efbfbb7d188dc92.jpeg)

Thanks 🙂

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![0x974](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/cesium/user_avatar/community.cesium.com/0x974/32/3476_2.png) [@0x974](https://community.cesium.com/u/0x974)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 4:25pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/shadows-are-too-dark/20653/2 "2022-10-03T16:25:40Z")

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I have noticed that if I change the `Rendering Material` of my `Cesium3DTileset` to wood for example, shadows are ok.

 ![Capture d’écran 2022-10-03 202353](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/cesium/original/3X/e/9/e91963fba19a049690e6516273def0909dc43095.jpeg)  
 ![Capture d’écran 2022-10-03 202411](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/cesium/original/3X/d/9/d99bb19681bd0f191d8e2b44aca86fc54aa4ad76.jpeg)

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**Author:** ![0x974](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/cesium/user_avatar/community.cesium.com/0x974/32/3476_2.png) [@0x974](https://community.cesium.com/u/0x974)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 5:25pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/shadows-are-too-dark/20653/3 "2022-10-03T17:25:11Z")

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This may be a hack but here is the solution I’ve vound:

I’ve duplicated `M_DEPRECATED_CesiumOverlay`, edited it to set the `Ambient Occlusion` attribute to `1` and set this material as the `Rendering Material` of my `Cesium3DTileset`.

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**Author:** ![Joao\_Sousa](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/cesium/user_avatar/community.cesium.com/joao_sousa/32/12437_2.png) [@Joao\_Sousa](https://community.cesium.com/u/Joao_Sousa)\
**Post date:** [May 31, 2023, 6:28pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/shadows-are-too-dark/20653/4 "2023-05-31T18:28:33Z")

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Sorry, I’m a little noob, how exactly?

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**Author:** ![janine](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/cesium/user_avatar/community.cesium.com/janine/32/5135_2.png) [@janine](https://community.cesium.com/u/janine)\
**Post date:** [May 31, 2023, 7:05pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/shadows-are-too-dark/20653/5 "2023-05-31T19:05:24Z")

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As the original poster discovered, the ambient occlusion texture was being set with the wrong default value. A [fix for this issue](https://github.com/CesiumGS/cesium-unreal/pull/1102) was merged into main and will be included in the upcoming release. You shouldn’t have to do any hacks to get it to work.